Substantial effort has been directed to the removal of contaminants from an aqueous media, such as ground water and precious metal recovery from such activities such as mining or plating operations. Numerous “Superfund” sites have been established because of contamination of ground water, surface waters, and soils by various materials. The main contaminants are metals, particularly uranium and hexavalent chromium, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), high explosive compounds, nitrates, perchlorates, and tritium, as well as various commercial and manufacturing waste contaminants.
Presently, granular activated carbon (GAC), ion-exchanged resins, air-strippers, and bioremediation are used for contaminate removal. These work on many contaminants. However, there is not a readily available cost-effective remedy for uranium and other metals, especially in combination with VOCs.
GAC has been commercially used as an adsorbent for contaminants in water; e.g. surface water, ground water, and industrial processes. It is cheap and treatment technology hardware is readily available commercially for its use. Even though GAC is a good adsorbent medium for many contaminants, such as VOCs, it is not as efficient for certain metals, particularly uranium, hexavalent chromium, and gold. Thus, there has been a need for a material by which contaminating metals and certain organic compounds may be removed from aqueous media.